To Life
by Lirazel
Summary: “The dinosaurs have been living under her bed for some time now.” Zoë finds a way to heal. PostBDM oneshot


To Life

"The dinosaurs have been living under her bed for some time now." Zoë finds a way to heal. PostBDM.

A one-shot about about life post-Miranda focusing on Zoë.

_Disclaimer: I do not own _FireflySerenity_, or anything they entail. This story is written entirely for my own entertainment; I am making no money from it._

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The dinosaurs have been living under her bed for some time now. Years, actually, but she doesn't like to think of that. But they are there, always there, as they are always in the back of her mind, and every few months or so, she takes them out and looks at them, holds them in her hands, remembers. Not more often than that, because that would be too much sorrow, and not less often, either, because that would be a kind of forgetting. But she has developed a sort of ritual: walk slowly into the room, weighed down with purpose. Sit, slowly, painfully, suddenly feeling inexplicably old, on the edge of the bed that she shoved against the opposite wall because its former location assaulted her with memories. Reach under the bed with arms that feel strangely heavy and tug the box out, hearing it scrape mournfully along the floor. Lift them out, one by one. Remember. But never cry.

This time is different. This time all she can think about is that she thought "living' and not "kept." The dinosaurs _live_ under their—_her_—bed; she does not keep them there.

It's a silly thing, a very un-Zoë-like thing. But it is very Wash, and there is a comfort in that. He would enjoy that so, in his slightly wacky way that could melt into a sudden seriousness that no one but she and the controls of _Serenity_ ever really saw. His imprint is everywhere, even in the way she thinks about a box of cheap plastic toys that a grown man she loved—_loves_—used to play with like a child.

And this time is different, too, in that there is more weight to it. She walked to the door half a dozen times today before stopping and practically fleeing back to the common area, abashed and a little disgusted at her own lack of courage. After all she's been through (so much for just one person), to be cowed by a box full of plastic toys and an inevitability is a little pathetic.

Because it _is_ inevitable. It always has been, and she knows it. Because of who she is, because of who he was, because of what life demands.

The metal of the box sliding along the metal of the floor makes her wince just a bit, which is new and more than a little annoying. And the snapping noise she hears as she unlocks the box seems so final somehow. The hinge creaks and the smell of plastic wafts out, stale and unpleasant. She runs a finger over the ridged back of one of the toys with all the reverence she used to reserve for her husband's skin. She holds them in her hands, feeling their imperfections and their weight and the inevitability.

She breathes for a long moment and almost cries.

Then with a determination she usually only needs in that moment before she jumps out into the line of enemy fire to let loose her own round, she slams down the lid, locks it, stomps out of the room.

The infirmary feels such a long ways away and there is a different kind of crying coming from it than usual. To her, that cry is regret and wistfulness and she feels guilty. She pushes it aside.

Jayne and Mal, who not twenty minutes ago were stalking back and forth with unapproachable looks on their faces that clearly said they would murder with their bare hands the first person besides Simon who talked to them, have now broken out the last of the whiskey and seem to be intent upon drowning themselves in it. Kaylee is giggling hysterically, as she always does when she doesn't know what to do. And Inara bustles out of the room with dirty sheets in her arms, a strange look on her face. They barely notice Zoë.

The infirmary is warmer than usual, but Simon is cleaning up with his usual meticulousness. And River is lying on the bed with a look stamped on her face that Zoë has never seen on another human being's. Simon's eyes light on the box for a moment, and something she can't define (but suspects is close to recognition) flashes in them. Zoë ignores it and pauses by the bed.

"I thought—" Her voice is suddenly not steady at all, and sounds more like she's been sucking fumes from the Mule. This is a weakness she has never allowed herself, to let anyone else see her grief. They all know, of course, and that never bothers her. But their relationship, the real, deep, intense side of it behind his flirting and her overprotectiveness was intensely private. And somehow it has always seemed to her that the loss of that relationship should be no less personal. So she tries again as she places the box on the counter beside the bed. "I thought he might want these."

River drags her eyes away from the baby in her arms, blinks as though returning from a long journey. And Zoë doesn't flinch under that gaze, for all her newfound vulnerability but stands tall and proud as she meets the little-girl-who-isn't-a-little-girl's eyes.

And then River, who of course knows what is in the box, shifts her son to her other arm so that he is closer to Zoë. "His name is Hoban," she says, and Zoë is struck anew by how lucid but how other-worldly she sounds. "Hoban Book Cobb."

"It's a good strong name," Jayne says from the doorway, for once subdued.

And Zoe feels all the breath sucked out of her at the power of this moment, then pumped back into her again, more beautiful and precious than ever before.

Somewhere, in that moment, a circle closes and a light flares to life.

"Yes," she says, "Yes, of course," because she cannot say thank you or I love you all or otherwise verbalize any of the innumerable ocean-deep emotions that fill her now. But River smiles, a little, and the rareness of it is a gift. And Zoë lets her hand float down and rest on Hoban's forehead. And he opens his eyes—deep, impenetrable eyes, like his mother's—and meets hers.

And she thinks of how much Wash would love this little squirming bundle of humanity, delight in being called Uncle Wash, never complain about crying in the middle of the night that keeps everyone up. Playing with a toddler and a collection of toy dinosaurs.

Zoë's world is physical, rational: a gun, a ship, a job, a family. But if she believed in visions, she would have called this moment one. Because she feels very much as if she sees her husband's lanky, vividly-clad figure sprawled out on the floor of the common, a toddler with Jayne's hair and River's eyes beside him laughing with delight as the pilot brings the dinosaurs to life with stories and sound effects and silliness.

This time, her eyes mist with tears.

River's do, too, as though she can see the same thing—perhaps she can. River, who never really cries, but who used to whimper and scream when overwhelmed by memories that were not hers, that she should not have had to carry; River, who now sometimes goes suddenly tense or limp with eyes so full of ancient pain that they swallow her pale face as she tries to hide herself in her husband's burly arms: River is crying.

"Thank you," she says, and that is all, and that is so much, and that is enough. And Zoë lets a callused hand linger on a silken forehead in a rough sort of blessing before she turns to go.

And Mal—her Captain, her comrade, her best friend—is waiting just outside the door with two cups in his hand. And—she is so very grateful, for she could not stand pity or even sympathy from him, would collapse under the weight of it—his eyes are mercifully unreadable, in that way he's been practicing and perfecting since that day when his world shattered. And he doesn't smile, either, because that wouldn't be Mal. But she _feels_ his understanding, and that is better. She feels everyone in the ship (her home) somehow filling this little blip full to the brim with life while floating in the nothingness that is the Black. And she thinks that this is what they fight for, what Wash died for, for this kind of understanding (love) and for a little spirit and body in the infirmary that so recently entered the 'Verse.

She presses her eyes closed, just for a moment, to hold herself together and to _feel_. And then she opens them again and takes the cup from Mal and smiles just a little at Jayne's wink and Inara's graceful smile and feels Kaylee's hand in her free one and turns to see Simon putting the box on the counter and watching his sister out of the corner of his eye while she has eyes only for her child. And this is life, Zoë thinks: the cold of the tin in her hand, the warmth of whiskey down her throat, the feel of friends (family) breathing and the sound of a baby crying not with pain or fear or need but with the newness of it all.

And a box of dinosaurs coming back to life because of a new soul.

"To life," Mal says, and his voice is quiet and firm, but clear. And everyone bows their head a little or nods or murmurs before they take a sip.

And Zoë clinks her cup to his and throws back the last of her drink. But before she does, she smiles inwardly at Wash, who is grinning sloppily wherever he is.

"To life."

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Hope that wasn't too melodramatic or cliché. Feedback is greatly appreciated.


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